BMC's Philippe Gilbert took the Vuelta a España Stage Twelve.
Three riders in Romain Zingle (Cofidis), Cedric Pineau (FdJ) and Fabrizio Ferrari (Caja Rural) broke as the flap dropped on this 164.2km stage from Maella to Tarragona and a lead of 6.22 was soon built on a day where 184 riders due to the withdrawals of Marco Pinotti of BMC with a sinus problem and Kevin de Weert of OPQS who crashed during yesterday's time trial won by Fabian Cancellera, started.
Lampre took to the front of the peloton which included race leader Vincenzo Nibali, King Of The Mountains leader Chris Horner, combined jersey leader Nicholas Roche and Points Leader and birthday boy Dani Moreno and with 94kms to go, the gap came down to 4.27.
The day's only climb - the Alto del Collet on a day when temperatures were around the 29 degrees mark, saw Romain ZIngle take the full points ahead of Ferrari and Pineau.
With 48.2kms and the gap down to just over three minutes, there was a crash and Astana's Maxim Iglinksky went down. It looked like a right wrist or shoulder injury but he got onto a new bike and carried.
On open highway, the pace from the peloton ramped up and with 30kms to go, saw the gap down to 1.13.
As the stage moved towards the coast at Cambrills, there was the first intermediate sprint which was won by Cedric Pineau.
In to Salou and Net App Endura were chased down the front trio and caught them.
This meant a scramble for the points for the second sprint, some five kilometres later and it was Ivan Basso who beat Saxo-Tinkoff's Nicholas Roche and Christian Wurt for the three seconds.
Tony Martin kicked off with 13.5kms to go, He lead for three kilometres but the peloton did not let him go and the World Time Trial Champion was brought back.
Due to the technical finish, it had been agreed that any rider going down or having a mechanical inside the final five kilometres would get the same finish time as the peloton. One AG2R rider had a mechanical as Astana took to the front on a small road with the sea on the right and a railway line on their left.
The sprinters started to be moved up and it was now Orica Green Edge on the front, working for Michael Matthews, who went under the flam rouge first.
Up the hill and Lotto took over. Team Sky's Edvald Boasson-Hagan went for the line but he was pipped by Philippe Gilbert who won in a time of 4.03.44, beating Boasson-Hagen and Richeze.
Vincenzo Nibali leads the race overall by 31 seconds from Nicholas Roche who said to La Vuelta.com: “I thought it would be a quiet day but the wind obliged us to stay very attentive during the whole stage. I opted for staying away all day. It’s not been a rest day but I’m ok. Yesterday evening, after the time trial I was exhausted. The daily ceremony takes energy from me every day. I must be careful."
A delighted Philippe Gilbert said about his win: "Excellent! "I have only one word: finally. I’ve trained so hard this year but I’ve remained frustrated by not winning until today.
"However, I never lost neither my motivation nor the trust by my team, my friends and my family.
"With the World’s coming up, I was feeling the pressure and that makes me even happier to win today.
" Like last year, my first victory of the season happens in Catalunya, maybe I should consider riding the Volta Catalunya [his last participation was in 2005].
"With Edvald who one of the strongest guys in the world, you can never be sure to have the situation under control, but I always remained focused on my sprint.
"I knew I had everything to come back on him. I got a good draft. I still had in mind my defeat against [Zdenek] Stybar [on stage 7] so I put in my mind that I could win or lose but I didn’t want to lose by one or two centimetre again.
"A lot of pressure will come with this victory. "I can imagine a lot of people saying that I can win again. But there’s no need to put any extra pressure on me. I’m not the only favourite. I can easily come up with ten names of favourites: Cancellara, Sagan, many Spaniards like Valverde, Rodriguez, Sanchez, Moreno… I don’t see why I’d be the only favourite."